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WMB, you can stop reading this response, now. I will probably just annoy you.
Forget it Tom, you know that I am not going to stay home on this one.
Why is it when people find a small bit of a rule they don’t like, that the rule is nit picking? Shouldn’t it be the people that are nit picking? Who is nit picking if the NFHS tells me that I have to wear a black belt. Why can’t I wear a light blue or gray belt with my heather gray pants?
The OCD emphasis on uniform specifications is taking things to the absurd.
Is it absurd that your favorite organization writes a rule that we have to wear a navy cap with white ASA letters, trimmed with light blue, and the US Flag on the left side, with the stars forward? It that over specifying?
For over 30 years the NFHS has specified a legal uniform for high school players, including the number on the back rule. Back in the seventies the rules were the same for BB and SB as both boys and girls were wearing the baseball style uniforms then. The BB rules have changed very little to today.
But girls are different! (Now there is a bold statement!) Girls are far more appearance conscious and are very demanding about clothing styles. To its credit, the NFHS has yielded to the girls and has changed its SB uniform rules almost yearly to make legal what the girls were wearing. They have legalized shorts and skirts and short sleeves and visors and headbands, and no sleeves and no hats and no bandannas, etc, etc, etc. They have allowed sleeves to be pinned up and shirts to be worn outside. As the uniforms became skimpier, the undergarments became more visible and so rules had to be written to cover that issue.
That said, once the rules were written, the schools and players were expected to abide by them, just like any other rule. And the NFHS left it up to the State Associations to manage it, not umpires. If a player has a uniform violation which cannot be corrected in a reasonable amount of time (as determined by the umpire), then umpires are directed to allow the player to participate. The umpire refers the infraction to the State.
Given that is the RULE, I do not understand how a game protest can be upheld that is in violation of the game rules – allow the player to play! Tom – your issue sounds like a Minnesota problem, not a NFHS problem. Asking the NFHS to fix it is not the way it works. The NFHS does not control State Associations; the NFHS is an association of State Associations. (Remember that SC still requires its umpires to call leaving early and missed bases instead of waiting for player appeal.)
As far as the team violation in Michigan, I have a problem with the AD that failed to read the rules before ordering new uniforms. I have no problem if the MHSAA tells those schools to replace their uniforms with legal ones.
Finally –
MI doesn't allow protests regarding player eligibility?
No, not game protests. Per the NFHS rules, umpires allow anyone on the roster to play, including those that come late. Player eligibility is a very complex process that is managed directly between the schools and the MHSAA. There is an appeal process and a state committee that rules on eligibility issues (transfers, age limits, grade limits, etc.)
And that is my soap-box speech for this day.
WMB
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